


dead reckoning

by TheProfoundSilence



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Titan Victory, BAMF Percy Jackson, Canon Divergence, End of the World, Gen, Immortals, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Imprisonment, Lima Syndrome, Mental Breakdown, Percy Jackson Angst, Post-Apocalypse, Solitary Confinement, Sort Of, Stockholm Syndrome, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheProfoundSilence/pseuds/TheProfoundSilence
Summary: AU Titan victory. When Kronos wins, he doesn't kill Percy, nor does he torture him or let him die. The end of the world as seen by a demigod's tragically young eyes and the fall of an age to usher in a new one.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 105





	dead reckoning

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: AU Titan victory. When Kronos wins, he doesn't kill Percy, nor does he torture him or let him die. The end of the world as seen by a demigod's tragically young eyes and the fall of an age to usher in a new one.

If you ever really asked Percy what happened, he’d be hard-pressed to give you an answer. Maybe it’d be because there is no-one left to ask that question, maybe it’s the lack of human contact, maybe it’s just basic human nature: to fret over things long past that you have control over, but nowadays it’s all he thinks about.

Maybe he shouldn’t have left Thalia be at the foot of Hera’s statue, trapped helplessly and unable to help them; maybe he shouldn’t have authorized that mission which led Beckendorf’s death and chaos in their ranks; maybe, maybe, maybe…

But the truth is, at the end, it hadn’t been his to lose, because when he had had the Titan almost at his mercy, when Kronos had almost gotten that look of resigned acceptance and there was the thrill of his almost victory in his hands…

The Throne Room had exploded. He didn’t remember much after that, the Achilles Curse had protected him and he had lain there in the dark, below tons of concrete and marble and stone, trapped, scared and very much aware. Apparently, the gods hadn’t managed their side of the battle well enough.

He didn’t know, he couldn’t tell when the light came back and when he cringed in pain, shying away from reality, the hands grabbed him and threw him in a room with metal bars and no light.

Percy wasn’t good with numbers or measurements, he couldn’t tell how big, or more appropriately, how small the room was. But he did know he could walk across it’s length with 5 steps and breath with 3 and a half steps. He could walk with the ceiling just a little over his head and when he reached out to touch it, it was never very far, never enough to let him stretch out his kinks.

When he laid down, he looked up to blank, dark walls and an even blanker ceiling and had nothing, absolutely nothing to do or say. He thought about Annabeth and the fire in her eyes and wondered if she were dead or if she was staring up at some dull ceiling, bored out of her mind and planning a hundred thousand escape routes.

He thought about Grover and Thalia and a little angry boy with dark eyes, who he had personally convinced to come to the battlefield, because apparently little boys deserved to be in wars when they were born in the wrong era.

He wondered about his dad and the way he had whispered that Percy was his favorite son in _ever_ and thought maybe Poseidon meant to say that, in a way, he wasn’t that big of a mistake and Percy thought that, maybe, his dad even loved him and then decided that Poseidon must have changed his mind by now, suffering wherever he was suffering his eternal agony.

Then he thought about Paul who had blindly jumped into a fight that wasn’t his own, that he couldn’t even see, because Percy was there and Sally wanted to be as well, and that meant he was ready to die, which meant he really, really must have loved his mom and maybe he loved Percy too.

He tried to think about his mom the least, because this one usually broke the camel’s back and he started blubbering like a little boy who missed his mommy, but he did miss her so so much and sometimes (so many times), this felt distant, surreal, like maybe if he woke up, he’d be in the hospital, a lanky 12-year old with weird hallucinogenic dreams and his mom, waiting by his side with anxious eyes and trembling fingers. He’d even take stupid Gabe over this.

The longer he stayed, the more his thoughts whispered, the less he cried, the number he felt.

After he found out he couldn’t die by banging his head against the wall, thanks to Achilles’ stupid curse (but boy, he should have listened to him) and there was nothing sharp enough to pierce his back.

And then, it was just him and the walls.

There were no footsteps that came to give him food and no change in the dim light from somewhere far away and he belatedly realized that time was meaningless here: he was never hungry, he never needed to poop or pee and he didn’t need to sleep even though he did it anyway every chance he got and then some but only because it was still way better than having to watch concrete and look at the grooves.

He was literally a walking dead, most of his brains missing and all.

He wondered how he was alive. Then he wondered why he was alive. Did the Oracle’s words mean nothing at all? She had hinted that he was supposed to die and Percy had taken it to heart; he was ready to die if it meant the world could live. Now the world was dead and he was alive.

But then Rachel had said he wasn’t the child of the prophecy.

How could that be?

Was there some secret child of the Big Three he didn’t know about? Maybe a weapon on the Titans’ side? Maybe a misguided attempt by one of the gods?

He can never know for sure, he just sits there and thinks and think and thinks…

He is so busy thinking that he forgets to move when his cell opens and finally footsteps walk to him and he thinks to himself, detached, that maybe he should do or say something.

He doesn’t do anything but only because he can’t figure it out. He keeps looking to the blank ceiling because after thinking about literally anything and everything to get out of here, do anything but talk to himself because he is so, so sick of himself right now but now he doesn’t know how to talk to anyone who is not a figment of his own imagination and he doesn’t remember how to answer questions anymore.

And then the footsteps, right by his prone body, speak in that grating familiar nightmarish voice, “You know, I was expecting more.”

And apparently some things are just muscle memory because Percy sure as hell doesn’t think about or remember moving, but his body moves and his knuckles hurt because he had also managed to surprise the Crooked one because his face isn’t bruised, but it’s tilted a little the other way, one hand on his cheek in bewildered surprise and because Percy really really doesn’t care anymore, he says, “Fuck you,” all burning rage and passion for good measure.

And the Titan King throws back his head and laughs and laughs and laughs…

Kronos is no longer wearing a young demigod (Luke, Luke, _Luke_ …) for his body like some weird psychopath. He looks his part: a super powerful immortal Titan.

He is dressed in body armor except for his face which is bare.

The worst part is that he can see the similarity; Zeus has his arrogant stance, Hades has those same impassive eyes (a different shade though) and Poseidon has his tan.

Worst of the worst of all, Percy can see parts of himself in the Titan King. When he smiles, that trouble-maker smile is all his. He wants to throw up.

“The demigods are all dead,” Kronos said, almost pityingly, head tilted in a farce of some human emotion. “And your gods are all in Tartarus."

Percy isn’t surprised. It feels like he’s been here forever and his life before was just a dream; he’s thought about it and cried about it but he’s also come to mostly accept it.

And yet, there was a part of him which wondered, which thought, foolishly and naively hoped beyond all reason…

Hundreds of what ifs, wondering if maybe, just maybe. The only thing that hurt him more was his _almost_. He had almost had Kronos at his feet. He had almost won the battle. The gods had almost won.

He had almost died. (That one hurt the most, whimpering in those infinite nights, clutching his head, wondering if he would go insane, with no rhyme or reason to life and no way to die.)

“What do you want, Kronos?” Percy crossed his arms.

Kronos smirked. “No one ever dares to call me by my name, you know.”

“Oh really?” Percy asked in a bored tone. He didn’t care, he just did not care. He didn’t even give a fraction of a fuck anymore. Because the war was lost and all his friends were gone and his family was now apparently just psychopathic Titans who wanted to destroy the world and there was nothing he could do or could have done and he’s all cried out about it. “Is it because you got a stupid name?”

“No,” Kronos said, all slow and patient tone as if explaining something to a child (and yet, that mischief in his eyes says otherwise, that _rascal_ ), “It’s because they’re afraid of me.”

“Is that ‘cause they’re all spineless?” Percy asked, leaning casually against the wall, just one captive talking to his captor at the end of the world.

Kronos _laughs._ “Yes,” he said almost fondly, as if they were friends or something and gods, but he hated _hated_ the Titan. “Something like that.”

Percy rolls his eyes, puts his thumbs in his jeans pocket, all casual and cool, as if he doesn’t want to just strangle the Titan King, as if his whole life hasn’t gone down the pits. “So, if the world is dead, why am I here?”

“Who said the world was dead?”

Confusion flashed in his mind. “So it’s all okay then. Nothing’s changed.”

“Now I didn’t say that either.” Kronos jerked him about.

Percy growled lowly in his throat, eyes flashing dangerously. “Is my mom okay?” He hadn’t wanted to bring her in this place of filth, even in his memory and had especially not wanted to say it, give Kronos the leverage he didn’t even need.

Kronos’ smirk faded a little. “She is happy in the Isles of the Blest with her family. She misses you though.”

He hadn’t thought it was still possible after everything, but it felt like his heart dropped. He thought he had accepted it, accepted his losses because that’s what happens in a war and the longer he had thought of it, the number he had gotten and when he had stopped feeling, he had thought that he had started accepting it.

But he had just mistaken feeling less for feeling better and suddenly, it crashes on him, with all the force of a disaster on his young shoulders and he literally buckles under it.

He shouldn’t show weakness, shouldn’t let Kronos get leverage but the truth is that Kronos already has won and there is nothing he can do to make this better so why try to be stoic and perfect, pretend like this hadn’t hurt? They both know Kronos has really hit him where it hurts.

Except he doesn’t gloat over it like a third grade villain, just stares uncomfortably intense while Percy breaks down, down, down…

When Percy uncurls from himself, his own cocoon long enough to look out, there is the three gray walls and the solid floor and the bland roof and him alone again. Like always.

There is no warning, not even an intuitive feeling that warned him of it. It’s just that one day Percy woke up and there was color again.

The skies are ridiculously, happily blue, the grass beneath his feet looks soft and a very brilliant green and there are flowers around and Percy has always appreciated natural beauty for the sake of it but he also hasn’t seen _anything_ worth seeing these past blue days and so he just looks around dumbly. Uncomfortably emotional by something so little.

There is no explanation, no Titan around. Without rhyme or reason, he is free again.

He sits there for awhile.

At first he just takes in the world, too in awe to move.

Then he worries if it’s a trap. Minutes later, he decides he doesn’t care if it’s a trap, he just has to do something, whatever he can. So he picks a direction and starts walking.

He walks and walks and walks. Day falls to night and he walks and it turns to day again and he still isn’t tired. He isn’t hungry either really. But what really bothers him is that there is no one around.

He doesn’t know when, how long it’s been since he started walking or how long ago the battle was fought, but suddenly, one day, he sees human interference in an otherwise natural place.

He jumps onto the deserted road, feeling, feeling, despite the fact that it is so very deserted that there is no longer a sidewalk, consumed by weeds as it is and even sides of road has those huge, tough weeds that have stubbornly grown in, despite the less than ideal conditions.

He looks down the length of the road. It goes in two directions naturally. He doesn’t know if he should go left or right. He randomly picks right, because by gods, does he hope that something goes right in his life for once.

The punchline of this not-at-all-funny joke is that of course, there were no gods to pray to, and so of course, praying for the right side of the road to lead to the right destination is tragically hilarious.

In a way, he gets somewhere. Somewhere being ‘nowhere’.

No, really, that’s the name of the place. Nowhere.

But Nowhere has nobody in it. Oh sure, they have those little town feels with barns and hay and little houses in a close-knit community, most of them looking lonely out in the middle of fields.

They really do look lonely, a swing set swaying in the breeze, no-one to jump on it; the places to eat that are still swinging open as if in invitation to absolutely no-one at all; a tiny school which had once hosted the population of Nowhere but now stands spookily still and silent.

Percy opens the diner because that is the least creepy thing still standing and walks in. His footsteps are so loud in the abandoned building, echoing hollowly and making him wince. But it’s not like _anyone_ cares.

He sits down on one of the chairs, close to the counter. Stares down silently.

The sliding of a plate makes him look up.

There is a huge stack of pancakes, nostalgically blue, maple syrup and caramel syrup and berries and whipped cream heaped on top.

He looks up further to golden eyes. Ruthlessly tamps down on that pang of gratefulness but _he hadn’t seen another face in ages._ He isn’t sure he keeps it from his eyes. Kronos mercifully does not comment.

He leans against the counter, golden eyes sparkling unnaturally, drawing Percy in, a sliver of a Mona Lisa smile on his face.

“Kronos,” Percy tries to find the energy to be angry, but it isn’t easy. He’s just too tired, too weary, still drinking in the idea of another sentient being with him, one that can actually understand him and talk back. “What do you want?”

“I just thought you might miss food.” Kronos smiled, teeth gleaming in a farce of a smile.

Percy did miss a lot of things, and regrettably a stack of blue pancakes was one of them, but he wasn’t _hungry_ and besides, Percy was lost in a big bad world in which he could control nothing and which made no sense besides, so by the gods, if the only thing he could control was his own impulses, he would damn well do so.

Kronos frowned, the corners of his mouth crinkling in soft disapproval, “There are no gods to pray to, my dear.”

Was he peeking in his thought? Percy stubbornly did not voice the question, kept his eyes defiant. Of course there was no point in it, nothing to be gained or lost. Everything was already done for; he was a pebble stubbornly trying to compare to the Everest.

But it was in the end all he had, all he was. Money, power, respect; it was all meaningless here. All he had was what he was. So, here he was, defiant for the sake of being defiant; drained of his anger, but angry still for all that everybody else had lost.

There was after all, no-one around to mourn it but him.

“I would never pray to the monster that has ruined my life,” Percy snarled. Meaning of course, that he would never bow down to the Titans, never pray for them, not even in this meaningless sliver of a life.

“Then why have you been praying to the gods?” Kronos asked with a smirk.

Percy pressed at the temples of his head in a futile attempt to calm his stress levels. “I don’t want to play games, Kronos. Where is everybody? And no more games. Where are the people?”

“Humans?” He sneered. “Filthy animals really. I was never very fond of them. When Prometheus made them, he was so proud, but I was disgusted-”

“Just like a good old B-rated villain,” Percy said bravely.

Kronos unexpectedly smiles. “You’re brave, far braver than I could have expected from such filth. That’s why I let you live when the others perished.”

And there it is, the stab of shock at something that was completely expected to him.

“You killed them all,” he blanked in shock and stunned surprise.

“Yes,” Kronos agreed calmly, as if discussing something trivial instead of world devastation.

“World devastation?” Kronos echoes in amusement. “My dear, this isn’t devastation. It’s world peace. Something your humans were fond of echoing and never getting through. I asked them what they wanted. They said world peace. I granted it. Regrettably, there was just no peace with those creatures around.”

“So you were just being an altruist,” Percy snarled in disbelief, getting some fire in despite his bone-weary tiredness.

Kronos smiles, dimpled cheeks and soft golden eyes. He looks boyishly innocent. Not like a menancing villain that deserves to be tortured in Tartarus for all of eternity. “Someone has to be,” he says modestly.

“Finish your pancakes,” Kronos tells him and before Percy can snap back, the Titan is gone.

Just to spite the Titan, Percy leaves the stack untouched no matter how tantalizing it smells and looks.

It’s _ages_ later when he learns that he’s been deceived yet again.

He doesn’t know how many days and nights have passed since that lonely diner with its nostalgic pancakes; he had tried to keep count once with tally marks and sticks but his interest in counting days had worn off soon enough. After all, what was the point?

The Lord of Time had that in the hat.

Of course, he regrets it soon enough.

Regrets and worries abound, Percy nearly misses the sound of the child crying. He keeps on walking, hearing but not _noticing_ the sound he had never expected to hear again.

When he realizes what he’s hearing, he stills.

Could it be…could it be that Kronos had missed one? It wouldn’t be impossible. Greek myths were filled with impossible feats and a child abandoned in the forest was hardly the most surprising thing to happen.

He’s running straight to the noise before he realizes it.

Thoughts of traps and impossible situations don’t make him falter; they don’t even cross his mind, matter of fact.

After all, death was but the next great adventure and in his case, it would be a darn sight better than the one before it.

The sound muffles down, quietens, but Percy has heard the voice, he has the scent so to say and he’s not going to stop. No way.

One second he is ducking under branches and running without abandon through thick forestry, the next he is in a clearing and he just has time to be surprised, just has time to register that _oh, there are a lot more humans than he had thought there would be, more than he had ever expected to see again_ and he has time to curse the Titan and think, _he lied to me, fucking lied that bastard_ and _I’m not even surprised._

Then a bullet blows his head clean off and he knows no more.

When he wakes up, it’s on a table, straps on his ankles and wrists that give him just a moment of panic before he moves his hands and feet and they easily move, his cut straps easily falling off to the ground.

Someone behind me chokes on his own blood, a death rattle that is so distinctive, so primal, it chills him to the core. Kronos is leaning against the doorway, coolly looking behind Percy. He looks like a young warrior, ageless and bold, a scythe in one hand dangling down his side.

Then he turns to Percy and smiles. The chilling thing is just how genuine, just how decent it looks. No deceit, no lies, just a normal good-looking charming fella smiling at him.

“Sorry it took me a while to get here. But I was in another continent. Humans really are everywhere, aren’t they? Like cockroaches. You take your eyes off them for one second and they start breeding.” Kronos complained good-naturedly.

“You didn’t have to go to the trouble.” Percy replies back, more in shock than anything.

“Oh that’s alright. No trouble.” He shook his head, black hair falling down on his forehead in a surprisingly boyish attitude. “And Percy, please don’t hesitate to call on me when you need to, yes? It’s easy to bring back the dead but why tempt the cruel mistress?”

Before Percy can reply back, maybe say something about how he had died, maybe call him out for lying, Kronos is already gone. There is blood and gore and dead bodies in his wake but really, that is unsurprisingly typical of the Titan.

There were a total of 15 men, 5 women and 2 children, including the one baby, in the campment. It’s hardly a huge number, not when you compare it to the net population and not when compared to the end times but it’s a drowning oasis for Percy. He had gone from a lone human to an impossible hope to the agonizing pain of knowing he had been, however indirectly, responsible for killing them all.

It’s cold comfort that they would have died eventually anyway.

He walks again, because there is nothing else to do, and then walks and walks some more.

Kronos had lied, he realizes once again at some indeterminant time in the haze of his life. He had lied about all humans being dead and that was clearly a lie, and he had complained about humans breeding like cockroaches and that meant that humans were still alive. Maybe not here, but _somewhere._ Maybe not happy, but still _there._

The thought is so hopeful that he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

It sounds no more impossible than a lone human on an entire planet that he can’t not accept it. After all, what does he have but hope?

And, the worst of it is that the hope hurts. Because what if it’s not true? What if, what if, what if…

He tries to keep those thoughts away, just focuses on walking, one step after another, after another, after another. That’s all there is to be and that’s all there is to do.

Sometime later, and one day, and whatever else you wanna call it, he sees a bunch of nymphs giggling, skipping rope with a vine or some green branch or something that Percy really couldn’t care less about. They see him coming and giggle. One even waves at him. It doesn’t stop them from running away long before he is even close enough.

Kronos drops by unexpectedly sometimes. Just alone one second and the Titan by him the other. He’s still as casual as always. Like they’re old friends just catching up…he talks about this and that, talks about Titan politics and complains about his brothers.

One day, he drops by, scarily still, eyes a violent golden and in a low, terrifying tone tells him about Rhea. His anger is a vortex of hate and violent indifference and Percy doesn’t quite know when he became the Titan’s confidant.

When it is so happened that Kronos’ anger led him to flee his palace and his brothers and run straight to his enemy of all places?!

After the Titan leaves, Percy ponders and realizes he can’t quite remember the last time he screamed and yelled at the Titan. He can’t even remember when he last got angry. It’s a sick sort of resigned numbness that doesn’t really surprise him.

He walks to the lands beyond and keeps walking. If there was ever an edge to the world, Percy could have walked to it. And he’s already seen the closest he could to the end of the world.

As it is, he walks to the edge of somewhere at least and looks out to an infinite sea. The air is clean, pure and his visibility is brighter and sharper. Has been for ages now, but he hadn’t realized it then. Hadn’t had the presence of mind to realize it then.

Birds frolic in the skies, playful and content like they hadn’t been before and the seas pound arrogantly, carelessly against the cliff. For the first time, Percy realizes why it’s called a _New Age_ and not _The End of the World_.

This is something different. Rawer, purer. No more right or wrong than it had ever been before. Just something new. A New Age.

He’s not sure he belongs here, but for the first time, he’s not sorry to have seen this.

There are raw wild flowers growing by the edges and they smell enticingly sweet. When he glances over to them, he can’t place their names. And realizes that perhaps it’s because they might not even have them. Names, that is. Naming is a human trait. Other creatures are content to just be.

Something new. Again.

This time, he doesn’t keep walking. He settles down and looks at the drowning sun, pale in oranges and reds. There were infinite stars in the night sky and an old Huntress to say hi to. And in the morning…In the morning, there was a brand new world to discover.

**Author's Note:**

> This was something that had been on my mind for a long, long time. I had been wanting to put it down on paper for awhile now. If you like, please do rate and review. I simply adore comments.


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